For The Sake of Clarity - The Digital Tavern

I’ve got a few video composites from my motorcycle trip around the world posted on my WorldRider account on YouTube. About a week ago I received a notification from YouTube, ironically the message was in Portuguese, that my “Riding Bolivia” piece included copyrighted material and that it had been blocked from further playback:

Prezado(a) worldrider,

Vídeo desativado

Um detentor de direitos autorais afirmou que possui [… Read More]

It was an idyllic southern California night complete with a burning orange and red sunset, gentle breeze swaying postcard palm trees and John Hiatt with North Mississippi Allstars (NMAS) tearing up the stage at Humphrey’s By The Bay in San Diego. Toward the end of his 90-minute set Hiatt said “the weathermen said it was going to rain…I guess they [… Read More]

Demme’s Masterful Portrait of Neil Young in Concert

It took a few years until I appreciated the music and genius of Neil Young. My high-school girlfriends all loved Neil Young, Crosby Stills Nash & Young and all the other derivations. His music didn’t fit into the profile of my young teenage angst. I was geared to Led Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult, [… Read More]

BBC reports that a Beatles song from the White Album has been voted as the worst song of all time. I'd have to disagree. Take virtually any song by Foreigner or Journey and it'd score much lower in my book. What's your worst song of all time?

I missed Scott Alexander’s phone call this afternoon. His voice on the message was somber and monotone. “Big Al,” he cracked. “The legend is gone. Scott Muni is dead.”

Growing up in a small Connecticut suburb of New York City I spent hours and hours listening to Scott Muni on WNEW-FM. The low rumble and deep timbre of his voice [… Read More]

My new Apple Airport Express arrived earlier this week. Within 45 minutes I had it connected to my wireless network here and streaming music to my home theatre sound system. About the size of a cigarette pack, it compacts a Airport Base Station in a portable device that adds ethernet and USB ports for expanding the network or adding wireless printing [… Read More]

Using netTunes, Airport Express and AirTunes. Isn't this what the Digital Hub was supposedly to be all about?

It was just about a year ago when I completed converting my more than 1,200 CDs into AAC/MP3 format where they now reside on a 2000 vintage G4 Cube. The Mac Cube is my Music Server. And since relegating this great piece of Apple [… Read More]

I noticed that AllMusic.com quietly updated their site and identity with a complete redesign. If you are a music fan and savour the history, discography, reviews, guest performers and nearly anything you could ever want to know about your favorite artists, then get over to AllMusic and see what you've been missing.

For me, the jury is out on the new site design. [… Read More]

So the last time I checked in I was off to spend a long weekend in the sunny Southern California community of Santa Barbara. The draw? Good friends, good music and good wine. Left the laptop at home and headed up the coast.

Highlight of the amazing weekend was a benefit concert paying tribute to Gram Parsons, the legendary musician who [… Read More]

Ban The iPod On Campus! At Work!

Good God. I see it coming.

Even the driest of technical or trade publications aren't immune to the lure of hype that supermarket tabloids and Rupert Murdoch are famous for. In this article in the every exciting Enterprise Security Today, Esther points me to the article where the headline harps “iPods Pose Enterprise Security Threat”.

Good god [… Read More]

A rival to the iPod? This is interesting.

BTW, more updates from China later today…

Ok. So maybe my title is a bit on the tabloid side of media hype. But according to an article in tomorrow's New York Times Rob Glaser, Real CEO offered to create a “tactical alliance” with Apple in an e-mail message to Steve Jobs.

Apparently there was a bit of “and if you don't” message in the e-mail indicating Glaser maybe knocking [… Read More]

This just in. Clear Channel announced a few hours ago that it would permanently pull The Howard Stern Show from its airways and has been fined $495,000 for indecency stemming from the Stern Show. Clear Channel who last month temporarily pulled the show from its roster of stations after the FCC began its witch hunt for indecency, pointed to the fact the [… Read More]

Another gig at the infamous Coach House in San Juan. The Coach House is one of those love/hate venues for me. I love the fact that they attract top artists such as Hiatt, Al Stewart, Adrian Belew, Peter Fripp, JJ Cale, Bruce Cockburn, Robben Ford, David Lindley, Norah Jones and many more. But the venue has questionable acoustics, they typically mix [… Read More]

It has been a busy week or so since I last was able to put some time into quality blogging. So I'll try to catch up with a number of posts today and tomorrow.

Music. I'm going to do a little housekeeping on musical activities of the last couple weeks.

Al Stewart – Live at The Coach House, San Juan Capistrano, [… Read More]

iPod

iPod Mini Comes in 5 colors!

Jobs is talking iPod success. The holiday quarter for the iPod, Apple sold 700,000 + iPods. This means now Apple has sold more than 2 million iPods. Apple is showing the iPod sales curve.

Marketshare for Apple in MP3 market: 31% and 55% in revenues. (no December figures inlcuded in this market)

The 10 gigabyte will [… Read More]

Years ago I saw Pink Floyd play live at Madison Square Garden. The real Pink Floyd, that is. The band that contained all members — especially the brain child of the band, Roger Waters.

I was a teenager naive, excited and alone in the Big Apple. Sitting in excellent seats while the band performed the entire works of both the Wish [… Read More]

Wow. I just found out that Robert Palmer died of a heart attack today. So we've seen Johnny Cash, Warren Zevon and now Robert Palmer. Both Zevon and Palmer in their 50's. Ouch.

A few things I found interesting this morning. First, Doc weighs in on his propensity to listening to satellite radio and his preference of Sirius over XM. But more important is his overview of a Times article than reviews radio options which ironically doesn't even mention AM and FM — the old stalwarts.

[… Read More] The truth is, licensed over-the-air broadcasting, [… Read More]

Several years ago during the dawn of the internet I was asked to speak at a conference in Prague for the European Journalism Network. At the time my brother Jon was a working journalist in New York City. I was asked to speak about technology as it related to delivery of journalistic content while my brother was to speak on [… Read More]

Microsoft is considering selling music online through it's Windows Media Player application.

Immitation & Flattery. Imitation is, after all, the best form of flattery. Or so the adage goes. Two other adages I hold closer to my heart are

1. The only things you regret in life are those that you don't do; rarely what you do.
2. Higher risk. Higher potential for reward.

So when [… Read More]